Articles and Biography Articles

Man With A Plan: An interview with one of Asia’s leading critics of globalization

By Francis Calpotura
Color Lines Magazine, Spring 2004

Walden Bello is one of the leading critics of the current model of economic globalization, combining the roles of intellectual and activist. As a human rights and peace campaigner, academic, environmentalist, and journalist, he has made a major contribution to the international case against corporate-driven globalization.

In 1995,
he co-founded the Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based research
and advocacy organization, of which he is now executive director. Bello
is the author or editor of 12 books, including the recently-released Deglobalization: Ideas for a New World Economy. The Belgian newspaper Le Soir recently called Bello “the most respected anti-globalization thinker in Asia."

About Walden

Walden Bello, senior analyst of Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines, is one of the leading critics of the current model of economic globalisation, combining the roles of intellectual and activist. As a human...

Walden Bello and “deglobalisation”

By Nicola Bullard
January 2006

Walden Bello was ready for the arrival of the anti-globalisation movement (now re-branded more positively as the global justice movement). He has been analysing, writing about and protesting US military, economic and political domination of the South since the 1970s, drawing on his experiences in the Philippines, under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, and his study of Chile in the period of Allende and the US-backed coup which lead to the installation of yet another US-friendly dictator, General Pinochet. From the early-70s, Walden was in political exile in the US. There, he studied and taught and wrote, but mainly did political work and organising among Filipinos. He wrote about the US’ military and economic role in East and Southeast Asia, about the “tiger” economies of the region, and about the role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in “rolling-back” (as Walden would say) the economies of the South in the interests of US capital.

Walden Bello: Pacific Panopticon

New Left Review 16
July-August 2002

The Filipino analyst and organizer of Focus on the Global South, veteran of the years of Allende and Marcos, discusses the prospects for the World Social Forum after September 11, arguing for the need to link protests against the IMF and WTO to campaigns against US military expansion.

Could you tell us about your education and family background?

I was born in Manila, in 1945. My father was in the movie business in
the Philippines, and involved in advertising and entertainment. My
mother was a singer and composer—both of them were interested in the
arts. My father read widely. The story goes that he was immersed in
Thoreau when I was born, and decided to name me Walden; though I have
two or three Spanish names as well. My parents were both
Spanish-speakers, but they didn’t transmit it to us—English was more or
less the first language in our household when I was growing up. I had
two other Philippine languages, but just spoken ones, not written. I
was taught by Jesuits, from first grade through to college graduation,
and my initial radicalization was a reaction against that conservative
educational system—the Jesuit schools in the Philippines essentially
catered for the children of the elite. I wasn’t from that background,
and was instinctively opposed to their strict class bias, in a
pre-political way.

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.